


Left to gather dust

by fleaflofloyd



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Heartache
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28350969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleaflofloyd/pseuds/fleaflofloyd
Summary: A very quick oneshot, inspired by the Christmas special.
Relationships: Lucille Anderson/Valerie Dyer
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Left to gather dust

They get Sister Monica Joan to the ambulance waiting, and watch as it takes her and Sister Julienne away down the street.

Then the incident is over, Lucille's heartbeat slowing back to normal.

It was there.

In the storage room.

Hanging up neatly on one of the shelves.

Valerie's uniform.

Lucille moves back towards the room, entering and closing the door, so she is not disturbed.

It shouldn't be here. 

Left to gather dust like everything else in here, unwanted, unneeded.

Everything opposite to what she thinks of when she thinks of Valerie.

Sharp and painfully wrong to what she feels for...

Her eyes are already welling when she lifts the coat hanger from its spot, the cardigan soft against her other fingers as she guides it down.

Her nurse watch is still pinned to the breast section of the blue, forgotten in her decision, mind certainly somewhere else at the time.

Lucille can hear it ticking away, echoing time continuing to pass, the distance between her and her best friend lengthening with each passing stroke of sound.

A tear slips from the corner of her eye as she leans against the only free surface in the room.

She'd known her friend had been struggling after the death of her grandmother, but had not considered the extent of it.

It stings her now, right along the inside of her chest.

She should've done something. Said something to ease her friends suffering, to avoid what has now come to pass.

A severing, clean and quick.

So quick Lucille hates her for it.

Water drops onto the last button of Valerie's uniform, slipping from Lucille's eyes in quick succession.

Part of her knows it's a reaction to Sister Monica Joan's fall and her subsequent worry, but another, deeper part of her knows that this emotion has been coming since Trixie had looked across the room to find Valerie's belongings gone.

A build up about to be let go of.

The faint scent of familiar perfume, so delicate, so completely Valerie, is her ruin.

She lets out a sob, and then another, bringing the uniform up to her cheek and nose to drown herself in it.

A hundred different things to a hundred different people.

A hundred different things to only her.

Colleague. Friend. Confidant.

Lucille doesn't hate her.

But she hurts for her, in a way that surprises.

It will ache until Valerie returns from her self imposed exile.

Until this uniform is hers again.

Lucille wipes at her face and nose with her hand, and sees that she's left a stain of mascara on the blue.

Valerie will see the mark on her return home seven months later, wondering about its origin as she sits on the front steps for each of her friends to return.

Lucille is last.

Valerie sees her suddenly up off her seat and peddling faster, all but dropping her bike to meet Valerie's arms halfway.

"You have no idea how much I've missed you," Lucille says through her tears.

"I do. I do know," is all Valerie says as they cling to one another in the slowly setting sun.

Her nurse watch is pinned above Lucille's heart, and she wonders no more.


End file.
